1. The article conflated lightweight markup languages as a class and Markdown in various places, and you’re making it worse by performing that conflation in different places.
Markdown was a specific invention which took parts of ancient customs (some from at least as far back as the typewriter era), but applied various other rules never before seen. It was absolutely not just a codification of already-existing usage. As probably the clearest demonstration of this: no one would ever have used  for images before Markdown. Interpret the remark “it’s barely a spec” in this light: it’s speaking of Markdown specifically.
2. The source quotation was talking about tables, not Markdown as a whole.
I make markdown tables by hand. Very simple ones. And simple is good.
Statements like “no one” are silly because they are easy to disprove and then get into “well maybe you do, but I don’t; therefore…”
There are lots of tables in markdown. I’m not sure how you definitively know if they are made by hand or cut and pasted from a helper tool.
Anyway, it’s a dumb argument to make. The beauty of markdown is that if you don’t understand something, just don’t use it. It’s not like there are many tables in blog posts or comments any way.
> Statements like “no one” are silly because they are easy to disprove and then get into “well maybe you do, but I don’t; therefore…”
You know exactly what the intended meaning is, because it’s a common idiom. For example, “nobody goes there anymore.” This is pseudopedantry just like intentionally misinterpreting phrases of the form “this or that” as nonexclusive disjunctions is. It can be used humorously, but taken seriously it’s just tiresome.
I do not think the post you are replying to, intended any sort of humor and I also think they made a correct and important point. I would have posted if they had not already done so.
1. The article conflated lightweight markup languages as a class and Markdown in various places, and you’re making it worse by performing that conflation in different places.
Markdown was a specific invention which took parts of ancient customs (some from at least as far back as the typewriter era), but applied various other rules never before seen. It was absolutely not just a codification of already-existing usage. As probably the clearest demonstration of this: no one would ever have used  for images before Markdown. Interpret the remark “it’s barely a spec” in this light: it’s speaking of Markdown specifically.
2. The source quotation was talking about tables, not Markdown as a whole.